Going on the offensive, managing risk, playing tactical defence and cutting your losses when necessary are all winning strategies in the game of chess and in the great game of investing, too.

Former five-time world chess champion Viswanathan Anand – Vishy to his fans – joined BNN Bloomberg on Tuesday to discuss his thoughts on strategy and how technology has changed the game.

Anand, the deputy president of the global chess federation known as FIDE, is in Toronto to attend the FIDE Candidates 2024 tournament. It's the first time the event has been held in North America and will determine the challengers for the men’s and women’s world championship titles.

"Canada and North America have seen an explosive growth in chess over the last few years,” Anand said, adding that the number of people in Canada who play chess grew by 60 per cent in 2022 and then another 20 per cent last year. "There are a couple of very famous streamers here, the Chessbrahs and the Botez sisters. This is one of the strongest events we have and we were very excited to bring it to Toronto.”

Just as artificial intelligence is changing the investing landscape now, so too, did it change the game of chess nearly three decades ago when in 1997, IBM’s supercomputer named Deep Blue, beat then-world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Anand said technology has come a long way since then and is making chess more accessible to the masses. "Any phone bought in the last three years is stronger than any human on the planet. That’s no longer the contest,” he said. "What AI brings to the table now is raising the chess level, in our ability to learn and understand the game."

The chess champion shared some of his strategies for playing chess, and many of them will resonate with investors looking for bold gambits in their portfolios, too.

"Learn what positions you’re good at, find out where the good moves tend to come from and try to get those positions on the board," he said. "In my case it was tactical play — I like positions with a lot of pieces smashing against each other — but essentially it’s always [to aim for] objectivity, never stop learning, and self-analysis."